Fed and the Trump

Shall we wait and see please and save our breathless anticipations since most of you have not been that good in anticipating events?

Has independence been good? Or, has there been genuine independence from all influences? Were not central banks financial-markets compliant in practice if not in precept? Was that not very true of the Federal Reserve? What does the paper, ‘Stock returns over the FOMC cycle’ tell us?

How do we ensure genuine independence from all influences? Is that even possible? If not, what are the costs and benefits of each form of compliance to some master – financial markets or political executives?

What about the impact, fall-out and implications of behavioural science research that human beings fall back on default options chosen for them when decision-making gets complex? (Ref: Prof. Daniel Ariely’s TED talk)

Central bankers are not exempt from that. In that sense, is the concept of largely unaccountable technocrats even desirable? What are or what ought to be the checks and balances on them?

It would be useful to Trump or to any political executive if these questions are discussed, Mr. Muenchau.

A mala fide article by Daniel Gros in Slate on the Federal Reserve and Mr. Trump (ht Prasanna Viswanathan). Very pathetic.